


Unfinished Business

by theunknownfate



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types
Genre: 31_days, F/M, Ficlets, Gen, Prompt Fic, Snippets, The Crow - Freeform, lady in the water - Freeform, other fandom crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-23 12:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 10,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4876876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theunknownfate/pseuds/theunknownfate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over the years, I have written off and on for 31_days over at livejournal, and some of my favorite ones were for Beetlejuice. Here is a collection, some more linear than others, of those snippets and ficlets. Most are short. Some are very short. I never know which prompt will need a Beetlejuice fill, so I'll add them as they happen. Meanwhile, this is what I have so far. </p><p>My take on the BJ-verse is that most of it takes place between the movie and the animated series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I am seeing ghosts in everything I do.

There were small signs that he wasn't completely exorcised. She didn't tell anyone. She hoped they wouldn't notice. 

The way the closet where her 'wedding dress' was stored would never stay shut.

The faint miasma of pinewood and decay that she could barely catch a whiff of before it was gone.

The chill that hung around her mirror and the bannister. 

The way no batteries would last more than a day or two and the power would skip in her room and no one else's. 

The grave dirt that appeared under her pillow.

The mold that grew in odd little patches on Adam's model city, especially the cemetery. 

The handprints that appeared on the bathroom tile in the steam of her showers. 

The way the ring on the chain under her shirt would end up missing and then reappear in various places, even though the chain stayed on her neck. 

She tried to distract herself with school, but the lines on the paper darkened to stripes. The print in the textbooks blurred like snakeskin until she expected the pencil to wriggle in her hand. Her desk light flickered and went dim enough that she got up in a huff. She tried to putter around her dark room, but pareidolia was in full swing and all her prints had faces hiding in the shadows. 

She gave up and put everything away. On the way out, the doorknob was so cold she gasped and looked down. The missing ring was on her finger now.


	2. You’re the model of a charmless man

She had made the little doll by hand. She had bleached a layer of the poppy-red wedding dress shock white to make the body. It was stuffed with ashes and grave dirt. It had taken her forever to make the little striped suit. The hair was shredded embroidery floss, pale and wild as corn silk. 

The eyes were glass beads she had made in one of her art classes. Getting the exact manic gleam of green and yellow had been an obsession, but finally, she had done it. She had two little spots of molten glass wickedness gleaming from the face. Then, she had taken her own eyeliner pencils to draw black circles around them. After that, the doll had waited a few more days under her pillow to be finally finished when she drew on a toothy smirk.

Now complete, the doll was relocated to the top of the pillow. She lay on her stomach, chin on her hands, and feet in the air, looking at her little creation. Its smell of ash and cemetery had faded as she had handled it, so she swung an arm to grab it roughly and bring it close to her face. Now she could smell it.

Lydia had no idea why she had made the little doll. He had been awful. Everything about him had been repellent. She had been so glad to see him gone, but afterwards had been unable to rest until she had some form of him back. His own form, made too small and powerless to hurt or frighten her. It wasn't quite enough, but it would do for now.


	3. One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t be responsible. It was just that he tended to wrap it so tightly in pranks and disgust that it never occurred to anyone on the receiving end that they had been done a favor. He knew the kid was as gloomy and cynical as only someone who had never really suffered could be. She thought her mortal woes were so terrible instead of the fleeting little instances they really were. He had seen her mind turn to other options a few times. That was how they had met after all.

“I want out,” he remembered telling her, all carefully reined in desperation, because this had to work, it had to, please little girl just open the door before this had to get any uglier. And she, in all her disproportionate, imagined misery had said, “I want in.” And he had recoiled like he had been hit with the stupid hammer. What?

“Why?” he asked, all cons and mechanations vanishing in that moment of incomprehension. To have life and not want it? After he had clawed his way closer to it for hundreds of mortal years and countless eternities on the other side, anything for the warmth and the light and the freedom of being alive again? He was almost angry, almost ready to scream that she deserved what she asked for if she was that stupid. But she didn’t know. Had no idea. And even in his near-outrage, he didn’t wish it on her.

He knew what he was missing. He had lived his life like a pack of wolves that had been struck by lightning and leaving trails of fire as they ran howling through the night. The less said about his death the better, but it hadn’t changed him that much. Once he got through the Veil, he had no intention of wasting another second. He would just have to show the little shrimp. When this was over. After he had his fun. He would let her see, give her just a peek of what eternity on the Other Side really meant if you were alone.

She would probably hate him for it. But maybe she would learn. And jumpstart the existence she had let stagnate when she should’ve been _burning_.


	4. Her Side of the Deal

He knew he was on her mind. She had murmured his name in her sleep last night. She had caught herself doodling stripes and wild eyes that afternoon when she was supposed to be working. She had whispered his name then too, hardly aware of it.

Subconsciously, she wanted him back. She had agreed to the terms and some part of her knew that she would have to honor the bargain. He lingered close as he could, behind mirrors, and in shadows. Unfinished business bound the dead to the living, as did guilt, and broken promises.

Snaky nightmares woke her by midnight, left her even more pale and the shadows around her eyes that much darker. She dragged herself out of bed and over to her vanity. She looked like a ghost herself in the mirror and leaned forward to rest her forehead against it. Her usually wild hair was hanging limp around her white face and her smoky black and purple make-up was smeared. Her breath misted on the mirror, so she was alive after all, even if she did look like a drowned corpse at the moment.

If he had had any breath, he would’ve been holding it right now. He was on the other side of the glass, mirroring her movements to stay hidden behind her reflection. His own forehead was pressed against hers, green and gold eyes burning out to her dark, lidded ones. 

Just once more, he begged silently. One more time. You know you want to, Lyds. You know you’ve been waiting for me. Just. Say it. One. More. Time…. 

Almost as if she could hear him, she raised her head and looked into the mirror. Almost as if she could see him, she stared into her own reflection’s eyes and through them, into his. Her lips were parted, breathing faint clouds of mist on the cold glass. Her voice was an aching whisper.

“Beetlejuice.”


	5. lies my parents told me

“There’s no such things as ghosts,” her mother said, closing the curtains so the moonlight and trees wouldn’t cast such eerie shadows on the mirror.

“I’ll always be here for you,” she had promised later.

“Everything will be all right,” her father had said that first night her mother had been in the hospital. 

“You don’t have to worry,” her mother’s weak voice had said from the pile of pillows. “I’ll be just fine.”

“It’s hard right now, I know,” her father had said as they stood by the coffin. “But we’ll get by. We’ll be all right. I’ll take care of both of us.” 

“Oh, Charles, isn’t she pretty?” Delia had cooed in her general direction. 

“Delia really likes you,” her father had offered over a dinner with just the two of them, which was rare these days. “You’re both artistic and unique.”

“Oh honey,” Delia had said, petting her like she was a spaniel. “We’re going to be a family!”

“Right,” Lydia had said. And as usual, they were clinging so desperately to their own lies, that they didn’t even notice her response.


	6. Deal's A Deal

“You’re not supposed to be here.” She had flattened herself against the wall opposite the mirror. He shook some sand and dust out of his hair. 

“Deal’s a deal, babe,” he said. A brave soul could’ve grated cheese on his voice. “The words were said, the ring was placed. Only one thing was left off, but the paperwork still went through.”

“That’s impossible! They said you would be tied up in red tape for three hundred years at least! They said there’s no way it was legal. They said-”

“They were wrong!“ He gave his collar a final yank and then turned on her, pinning her to the wall with a shark-like grin. “Now…”

“Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!” she said it as fast as she could, but he didn’t try to stop her. He didn’t disappear either. His smile tightened and he stalked over to her.

She threw up her arms to keep him back and he walked into them with a solid thump. To her continued shock, he wasn’t cold and at that close range, she could see a pulse thumping in his throat. 

“You can’t be alive…” she whispered. “You’re dead.”

“I married one of the living,” he reminded her. “I’ve been granted a certain kind of citizenship.”

“But, but, the ceremony was never completed!” She was grasping at straws and knew it. “The worm came before-”

“I just said there was one thing we didn’t get to.” Maybe it was the long stretches of banishment that made his voice so rusty. Maybe it was just neglect and not, she hoped, a crusted layer of bug guts. 

His nose touched hers, and she caught a faint whiff of cold earth and bone dust. Then, he kissed her. She could feel warmth spread through him, and the bolt of shock that went through her settled into a tingle, even as she struggled to cope with the taste of mouth that had been around longer than toothpaste.


	7. lit like a burning city

She wasn’t sure if she had really made him angry or if he was just showing off, reminding her that even though she could call him forth and exile him back, he was the one with the power. It crackled off him, like static, like sheet lightning, like a series of nuclear explosions seen from space. He glowed from within like a radioactive jack o’lantern, but it was more than just light. Whatever he radiated, it wasn’t just light. It was cold and tingly, and sank deeper than the chill to twist her stomach up into tight flutters. 

When he powered up like this, you could see the little trails of magic or balefire or whatever it was, appearing in him or through him. It made her think of the glowing red cracks you could see in lava flows, only instead of burning red through molten black, this was will o’ wisp green beaming from fish belly paleness. It was also very much like the flickers of lightning highlighting the inside of a tornado. He was not any less dangerous than a natural disaster, would not destroy her any less. And like any good storm chaser, she couldn’t help but look forward to every outburst.

Maybe is was something left over from her gloomy teenage years, when she had been attracted to the thought of throwing her life away. Everyone on the Other Side had warned her about him, had told her that he could potentially tear apart reality itself. She hadn’t listened. She didn’t really worry that he might be the end of her, or the end of the whole world. She just enjoyed seeing him burn.


	8. say it again

There were other ways to handle everyday problems. Ordinary ways. Ways that didn’t involve summoning spirits from beyond the grave. As satisfying as it would be to see the walls ripple and watch her enemies cower under the sound of gravelly laughter, that wouldn’t solve the real problem.

_They weren’t really enemies_ , she reminded herself. Just annoying kids a year older than her. A rock whizzed over her head and she heard one of them yell something stupid and mean. _Ok, maybe they were enemies._

“Beetlejuice,” she said, just to make herself feel better. Another rock smacked off her backpack. Her camera was in a case so she wasn’t worried about it, but she was pretty sure the rock had been meant for her head. She picked up her pace a bit. 

_Get to the corner, then duck into the woods_ , she told herself. _Then, run_. Once past the creek, they wouldn’t be able to see her. And in the woods, no one but them would see the trees go striped and the vines become snakes with leering faces. Maybe something rude would be said to the hard-faced girl she could still hear laughing, something gross enough to shock that stony sneer off her for once. 

She almost smiled before the sound of bike wheels spinning caught her ears. They were going to chase her on bikes? Well, the runty one did sort of look like E.T. Abandoning dignity, Lydia grabbed her backpack straps a little tighter and broke into a run. 

_You can’t outrun a 10-speed_ , she told herself. 

_I can in the woods_ , herself replied. She put her head down and ran. The whirr of the bikes spokes was slightly louder on the gravel. She could hear the big guy’s steady jeering over the sound. She felt like Ichabod Crane, racing for the river, desperate to cross running water, and escape the vengeful fiend on her heels.

And speaking of vengeful fiends…. “Beetlejuice,” she said again, wincing at how close the word was to a whine. The tension in the air turned anticipatory. Was it predatory glee from the bullies right behind her, or from the poltergeist no doubt waiting in the wings? She ducked around the corner and into the trees, jumping a little wash and tearing up the hill.

The bridge was just ahead. That was where the Maitlands had died, she remembered suddenly. The girl shouted a threat and Lydia bit her lip. Her first footstep on the wood planks of the covered bridge echoed down the corridor. 

“Beetlejuice!” she screamed. There was a woosh like water from a floodgate and three separate screams rose high and shrill behind her. Lydia ran all the way across the bridge and kept going. She didn’t look back, because she didn’t want to admit to the vengeful glee of her own. She would go home, and thank him when he came to gloat. She knew he would, just as she had known he would come if she called him.


	9. possession

“I could taste the beetles you keep under your tongue!”

“You’re welcome.”

With a shrill sound of revulsion, she ran to the bathroom and went fumbling for mouthwash. Once she was out of sight, he gave himself a little shake, sending up a cloud of grave dust and dandruff. Warmth still clung to him and it would be awhile before he lost the sensation of a pulse in his ears. 

“The Handbook says you aren’t supposed to do that!” came a gargling complaint from the bathroom sink. “We have Rules!” 

“I don’t,” he said, examining a grimy fingernail. 

“There’s Laws about possession-”she choked, spitting a mouthful of foam into the drain. 

“Possession’s 9/10s of those Laws, babe,” he chuckled, appearing in the mirror to look her in the eye. She glared, angrily wiping the traces of toothpaste out of the corners of her mouth. 

“I wasn’t even trying to contact _you_!” she snapped, whirling back to her room. 

“Hey, if it makes you feel better…” He made a big show of shrugging his shoulders as she threw the Ouija board back into its box. The old picture of her mother was put away much more gently. “Now I miss her, too…”


	10. you become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed

“I’m never getting rid of you,” she sighed, looking him in the eye. “Am I?”

“Careful what you wish for,“ he said with a grin like a graveyard fence. “You’d miss me if I was gone.” 

Her first impulse was to deny it. It was bad enough that he couldn’t keep those cold hands to himself, but they were always filthy. Six hundred years of grave dirt lingered under those nails, and if the smell was any indication, they had been digging in worse places too. For someone who was supposed to be intangible, he left a lot of handprint smudges and lingering odors. 

She got blamed for the smells, but had been able to hide the more physical evidence so far. She was dreading the day that was discovered. He liked to bite and dig in his fingernails, like some sort of feral cat that had learned to enjoy being petted, but couldn’t resist lashing out in close quarters. No one would believe she had a secret boyfriend at school, or even a secret bully. They would probably think she was scratching and biting herself. Who knows what sort of interventions and therapies they would inflict on her then. 

He also said things that were a little too true about her and the people she liked, whilst telling her things that she seriously doubted about himself. He was as impossible to ignore as a toothache. He said and did things that appalled and infuriated her. Everything about him was distracting and upsetting and a little scary. 

And, in all honesty, she liked it that way. It wasn’t like she had to let him out. He might’ve tricked her into saying his name the first few times, but she was no slouch in the brains department, and as otherworldly as she looked, she had a good grasp of reality. If she was really wanted nothing to do with him, she could’ve managed it. He would’ve made it difficult, of course, would’ve tormented her to the best of his ability through every loophole ever imagined, but if she had just refused to be any fun, he would’ve lost interest. Maybe. 

Trusting him a little had worked, though. Letting him out, letting him play among the living, had gentled some of his chaotic impulses. He was still an unrepentant troublemaker of the lowest order, but he followed her rules better than he followed the ones of his own dimension. He was still a wild cat, but he came when he was called, and was more playful than predatory now. And she had to admit she liked it that way, too. 

“It’s impossible to miss you,” she said aloud. “When you won’t go away.”

“You’ve no one to blame but yourself,” he said, smirking, and that was also true. She could banish him easily enough, but then what? What would she do if he wasn’t there? And wouldn’t he just be twice as wild when she did call him back? And she would call him back. 

So, she wouldn’t argue anymore. She would just enjoy the flattering warmth that came from being the only ankle he rubbed against, no matter what vermin-laden filth he left behind.


	11. Small Worries

Even when Delia was the most annoyed at Lydia, she understood. The girl was different. Artists usually were. Photography seemed dry and aloof compared to the visceral thrill of sculpture, but art was in the eye (or hands) of the creator more than the beholder. Delia had a vague inkling of how photography worked; the chemicals and the process. It fit the whole witch’s brew aesthetic that Lydia sported so well. It was good. It was artistic. In its own way.

She understood that she was the stepmother and no matter what she did, Lydia would always be comparing it to her real mother. She understood that they might never be as close as Charles wanted them to be. She wasn’t sure he understood it, but that was all right too. She loved him. She loved that silly, plain-laced man with every over-dramatic bone in her body. Finding him gray and clutching his chest, gasping that it hurt, _he couldn’t breathe_ had terrified her. The thought of losing him so soon had sent Delia to depths that she would never be able to translate into words.

She had rallied though. She was the sculptor, not the clay, not as weak and malleable as people liked to mutter at her shows. She had taken charge. She had called 911 with one hand while tending to Charles with the other and had handled everything. When the doctors told her it could happen again, she had been the one to make all the plans. Charles would never have asked her to give up everything. She did it for him. Lydia had been near catatonic at the thought of losing her father as well and had been no help. It had been Delia, calling the realtors, calling the movers, making it all happen.

She wasn’t losing him, she told herself. She wasn’t losing Lydia. They would find a good place and they would make it work. If by the time, they had found one, she had been shrill, nervous wreck of a harpy, well what could they expect? She fussed about little things, she barked and bitched. She had to. The brittle shell of bitterness was all that was keeping her from shattering into a million pieces. The reality of the situation kept sneaking up to dig its claws into her.

This was not the life she wanted. She wanted Charles to be all right. She wanted to get back to work as soon as possible, just to have something of her own. She wanted Charles to be safe. She wanted him to appreciate that she had done this for him. She had come from a miserable little town like this and had sworn never to go back. They had treated her like a freak instead of an artist. She wasn’t going to tolerate it as an adult and if that meant reminding them all how Podunk and common they all were as often as possible, that’s what she would do.

They weren’t going to get to her. Lydia wasn’t going to get to her. Thank God for Odo. With him there, she had an excuse to fixate on something easy, like mauve wallpaper, and not have to wonder if this would work. Would Charles recover here? Would Lydia be all right? Would the small town’s small minds crush the moody girl? Would it mean the end of Delia’s career? It was too much all at once, but it would be worth it for Charles, even though she snapped at him. It wasn’t his fault that this was all his fault. She hoped he knew that too. She was short with Lydia, who was dealing with the near-death of her father by embracing all other death. It was like she was already mourning him, and it made Delia’s teeth grind. He was going to be fine if she had to kill him herself.

And then she had to lock herself in the bathroom to cry at that thought. When Charles knocked to check on her, she couldn’t bear to have him think she was crying over how scared she was. She shrilled something about how tacky the tile was, so he wouldn’t know it was him she was upset over. He had said something sweet and stupid about how if anyone could make it amazing, it was her, and then he walked off. The bathroom was quiet after that, and she started doing her face up enough that not even sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued Lydia could tell there had been tears.

The house was quiet when she walked out. It felt like it was watching and waiting. She squared her shoulders. It was going to be hers too, she reminded herself. She wasn’t going to end up a widow walking these halls. Worry about something small and manageable, she told herself and went to see what passed for take-out in this place.


	12. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for 31_days theme: Relevant to my interests.

It was finally October. It was the one time of year everyone else joined in with Lydia in celebrating the darker side of life and some of them even reveled in it more than she did. It would be her turn to roll her eyes at them for awhile. She had celebrated by digging out her biggest, comfiest black sweater, her striped witchy leggings, and drawing spiderwebs all over her lightbulbs so they cast the shadows around the room. 

Delia had been making some kind of deconstructed hot apple cider for her gallery show next week and gave Lydia a mug of the sans vodka batch. Lydia took it and a box of nilla wafers and went to her room to read about Slenderman and Nyarlathotep and Mary Ann Cotton. Off in the distance, the first day of October went on. She heard her dad and stepmother come upstairs and called a good night when their voices passed her door. It was night already, she noticed. The gloomy purple evening had gone completely dark, no stars or moonlight to be seen. 

Lydia opened her window a crack to let the wind whistle and rustle the papers on her desk a little. She found some local stories too, a witch burning in the 1700s that had no actual documentation, an urban legend about a face that appeared in windows, or was it rear view mirrors? There was even one about the covered bridge in town haunted by the childless couple who had died in a car crash there. She laughed softly at that one. 

“You know better,” a voice grated in her ear, followed by the cold lick of a long-dead tongue. The bed underneath her writhed as countless spiders and roaches poured out from her blankets. All the shadowy webs on her wall became solid, writhing strands that wrapped around her. She gasped, then giggled. There was a wet chittering sound like giant spider mandibles and two yellow eyes lit up in the darkness in front of her.

“You’ve stayed up too late,” the gravelly voice went on as the smile around it became visible. Like a really creepy Cheshire cat, she thought. She loved it. “Looked too long and allowed the darkness foothold.”

“Tis the season,” she said with a grin of her own. He chuckled too, banishing all the creepy crawlies and grasping hands except for his original pair and they settled down to read about Poveglia Island.


	13. Used to Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day/Theme: the eyes and hands and curiosity of a lifelong bandit

There were times she couldn’t help but wonder what he had been in life. It was the only thing he wouldn’t talk about, which she thought was odd since he was so anxious for any loophole that could get him back with the living again. He would tell her all kinds of lurid things about his afterlife, but always changed the subject or cracked a dirty joke as soon as she asked anything about what he had been when he was alive. 

She tried to guess, piecing together clues from what he had told her. The trouble was she didn’t know how seriously to take him. He mentioned living through the Black Plague which would mean he was hundred of years old, if it was true. The only outside information she had on him came from the Maitlands who told her that Juno had said he used to work for her. From what Lydia knew of how that worked, that meant that Beetlejuice had probably committed suicide to have landed in the afterlife civil service. 

She couldn’t imagine it. Dead as he might have been, she knew plenty of living, breathing people without a fraction of his fire for life. He wanted back to life so badly that it didn’t seem possible that he would have killed himself. His crazy eyes burned with it. Her gut told her that whatever was driving him was more than just guilt or regret. Something had happened. Something he wouldn’t tell her. Something nobody would talk about. 

So, she watched him and took note of the wicked, clever fingers that made her think he had always been a conman, or a juggler, or a thief. She kept an eye out for scars on his wrists, or any whiff of almond or hemlock on his breath. (It could only be an improvement.) She wondered if the way he popped his neck when annoyed meant that he had hung himself. Was it possible that he stayed so filthy because he couldn’t bear water after drowning himself?

Did it mean anything, she wondered, that the only time he had ever really be serious with her was when she had said she wanted to be dead? She remembered the quiet way he had asked her “Why?” just one word with all the disbelief and unease of someone who had wanted more than anything to live. He had changed the subject then too. He hadn’t argued, but he had derailed her. 

Whatever the truth was, he couldn't bear it. Whether that meant he had thrown his own life away or been forced to take it by something too awful for even him to talk about, she didn’t know. Not yet, anyway.


	14. Two Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day/Theme: 6. Every neighbourhood should have a great lady.

Lydia had a reputation. A century ago, she would’ve been feared and hated for it. In even older times, she would’ve been revered. As it was, she was just considered a little weird and witchy. If she had been an adult, she could’ve worn her black and her lace and her too-knowing smile and gone where she wanted with the smell of candle smoke, violets, and developer fluid. The cats would still love her, the young boys would still be afraid, and the older ones would still struggle for the right thing to say. She could’ve lived alone in the strange house on the hill, the one where the last couple had died. She would still go and come from her own brand of errands, the mysterious lady who answered to no one. 

For now, she was still a girl, and unable to get away with that just yet. She had the black and the lace, the smile and the scent, she still wandered where she liked and found beauty in places no one else could bear to look. No one had anything definite they could hold against her. She was never definitely rude. She just didn’t budge for anyone. She had a way of looking at people who confronted her as if they were the very least of the things she had seen. She couldn’t be bullied or insulted, because she laughed it off. She honestly couldn’t be bothered by any of them and they didn’t like it. They would have rather she be sad or angry. They would’ve understood that.

The little boys at the corner caught a snake and threw it at her, but they were the ones that screamed when she spoke softly to it and let it wrap around her arm. When they retold the story, they told how the girl in black stroked the snake and how it twined around her like it loved her. She hadn’t even pulled back when its flickering tongue touched her mouth. They left out the part about them throwing it at her. 

The old men outside the general store asked each other about styles nowadays as she went by, as if she couldn’t hear them. They talked about how they had raised their own children and what they would and would have allowed their own girls to do. They spat on the ground and looked too long and made unhappy sounds to show that they didn’t like staring at the odd little girl, certainly took no pleasure in giving her their attention, but how could it be anyone’s fault but her own?

She could hear them just fine, but she didn’t let on. She was enjoying the general unease and disapproval that followed her now, just as she would enjoy it in fifty more years. They noticed that she spoke to herself in the same gentle voice that she used on the snake, pitched too low for anyone who wasn’t right beside her to make out. They heard her laugh at something no one else heard and looked sideways at each other, raising eyebrows. The one thing they hadn’t noticed was the other shadow following along with hers, bending to whisper in her ear.


	15. Taking the Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day/Theme: 6. Stubbornly believing in a cursed crystal ball

She shouldn't trust him, but she did. The Maitlands, especially Barbara, despised him and assumed the worst at every turn. He obliged them by being despicable and taking even their low expectations to new depths. Her parents believed his presence was a fluke, that there was order in the universe and the afterlife and that he wasn't really allowed to manifest completely. They figured the worst he could do was be a minor nuisance. She hadn't told them that she could call him up or banish him at will, or that the one happened much more often than the other. Beetlejuice humored that too. 

It wasn't that she was stupid. She knew better than to trust him. She was wary. She kept her eye out for potential traps, but still managed to enjoy his company. So, he was just dirty enough for her to catch him, just raunchy enough to satisfy her paranoia. She wondered sometimes if he was just giving everyone what they expected, that he was only untrustworthy because no one trusted him. Deep down, she knew better.

He was dangerous and the moment she forgot that, he could strike. People kept poisonous snakes and predatory cats as pets for years before they were turned on. As long as she remembered that anything he told her could be a lie, anywhere he led could be a trap, and anything he offered her could come with a very steep price, she might be all right. She stayed just an inch out of reach. She didn't want to give him up, even if it was only a matter of time before she was hurt. 

But time was nothing to him, so maybe it would be a long time.


	16. No Longer Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day/Theme: 8. Turn off your favourite song (it's a short one)

The song was an old one, about lovers parted in death. He returned as a specter on the anniversary of his death to keep other suitors away. _True to me always_ , the chorus sobbed. _My one, your only. Forever, yet no._ Then he faded away with the morning light and she pined.

It had been Lydia's favorite when she was twelve and the boys she knew had been such creeps. The idea of a phantom lover who couldn't touch but only whisper endearments and vows of faithfulness had been appealing. 

Now that she really did have an admirer from beyond the grave, it hit a little too close to a nerve. It wasn't enough to have eternal devotion moaned on the night breeze. Luckily, her ghost was very tangible. His hands could grasp and his mouth could kiss, which was more than the lamenting ghost beau in the song could claim. That much she could have, and it was as frightening as it wasn't enough. 


	17. crossover challenges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is from an LJ crossover writing challenge. The first one was a crossover with The Lady in the Water, the second with The Crow.

8\. Dark, 2 and 8 BJ and Story

“This should not happen!” she screamed, terror twisting her pixie face into something even more otherworldly. “This is not allowed! They can not interfere when the Eatalon comes!” Blood ran from the scratches in her legs, blood flowing out as the poison flowed in. 

“Rules,” he grunted. “You know I hate em.” He met her eyes and she went very still, recognizing the difference between a man merely broken-hearted and one long, long dead. He recognized her too. Human or not, she wasn’t long for the world, and he knew a fresh corpse when he saw one. 

“Until you learn to break the rules back,” he went on. “You’d best stay where it’s blue.” His head tilted like a dog hearing a whistle. He jumped to his feet and strolled over for a better view of the scratches. The humans scrambling to help her didn’t see him. Another shiver as if he had heard the sound again and he gave her a grin that oozed mock sympathy. 

“If you make it over, doll, you can look me up,” he winked and then the third call came and he blinked away, disturbing the butterfly that was trying to stay out of way on Mr. Heep’s shoulder.

 

10\. Death Fic, 2 and 3 BJ and Crow

Beetlejuice had seen (and been) enough angry spirits to know all about wanting revenge on the living. He followed the young wraith, processing. He had a good look, BJ admitted. A little severe, a little humorless, except for the black smile painted ear to ear. It was an effective color scheme, even if the kid had over done it a little. 

The Crow stalked the street for the first few hours, and then started killing breathers. Beetlejuice followed along, just keeping an eye on things. It was kind of like community service. It wasn’t every day a Crow dug its way out, and he been the only spook on the outside for Juno to call. They wanted surveillance, because the Veil always suffered when Crows were loose. They did bring the party with them, but it wasn’t much fun for anyone else. Even they didn’t seem to enjoy it. 

They did all right, he supposed, from an artistic point of view. They had a sort of grim showmanship, but it was just a lap dance, intended only for their immediate victims and with no thought to the rest of the audience. 

“Wrap it up, junior,” he muttered, floating along after. The car wired with explosives went tearing by and he sighed. “Some of us still have unlives. This isn’t how I like to spend Halloween.”


	18. Irresistible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day/Theme: 1. All the gates of love you won’t walk through

He had never tolerated boundaries, limits, restrictions, or rules. There were few that could hold him. So why was he holding back now?

The child did hold absolute power over him, the power of his name, the power of three, and possibly a third unknown thing he refused to give name too or look too hard at. If he did, it would look back at him, and if he called it by name, he might never be able to banish it back. Just thinking about it sent phantom itches through him. He didn't dare scratch for what his fingers would find. He ignored it, even as he felt it wriggle like a maggot between his molars. He gave it plenty of room, letting it stay an unidentified sensation. It didn't bear closer inspection. 

For the first time in his long existence, he was digging in his heels. He wasn't afraid. He just knew better. This was a trap. If he was careful enough, he could get a nibble of cheese without being caught. He could do it. But then the child called, nine sweet syllables, and it wasn't so much a trap as a black hole sucking him in. There had always been things he couldn't resist. He could claim it was the power of his name that compelled him through the veil. And he knew that even if he wasn't called, he would find a way back to her. He was willing to pretend he didn't have any choice but to go, if only to hide the fact that he didn't have a choice.


	19. Empty Rooms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day/Theme: Open up and let me crawl inside.

He had been in the middle of a royal dressing down, courtesy of her royal hind end, Juno when the first whisper made him shudder. Someone (and he had no doubt as to who) had just said his name. 

Juno barked, making the slit in her neck gape wider and he snapped back to attention. She laid into him again, raspy voice sandpapering the dust of what remained of his ability to feel shame into clouds. Eyes wide in feigned contrition and nodding vigorously, he was already inching for the door when the second call came. His rotting grin unrolled slowly across his face like a sinister party blower. One more, just one more….

“What the hell do you think you’re doing??” Juno snapped. “Do you actually think you would even get out the door before the barriers stopped you?”

“Got no choice,” he said, spreading his arms out. “Answering to a higher calling here, June.” Right on cue, the third name called and his grin went as wide as his arms. He heard Juno’s furious threat begin, but he was being dragged out of her reach, past her precious barriers, from one world into the living one. 

Lydia waited by her mirror until her reflection’s eyes flared yellow and its face became a leering one. Her real face lit up with relief. 

“Get me out of here!” she begged. “Let me in.”

“You don’t want to be on this side either right now, kiddo,” he said, ears still ringing from Juno‘s tirade. “Let me out!” She hesitated, then grimaced and moved aside, letting him spring out of the mirror in a spray of grave dust and the crackle of lightning. He didn’t stop to ask what her problem was. He just scooped her up and shot them both up through her ceiling. The power in the old house flickered and went out as he drained it of energy on the way out. 

She hid her face in his disgusting coat, which was a sure sign she was distressed. He was going to enjoy tying whoever caused that into knots. Just because his conscience was in a serious state of disrepair didn’t mean it was too condemned to allow a grim little girl passage. That wasn’t the only part of him she had found a way in to and wandered, leaving dim lights on here and there in the dark rooms of his self. 

They touched down in the cemetery, but she didn’t let go of him. He let her nestle in like a little maggot and smirked at how Juno was probably in flames by now. He would deal with that later. The chewing out would be worth it. 

“It’s all right, toadstool,” he said. She just sniffled which was a mistake because the smell got her to pull back. 

“I’m glad you came,” she said. 

“I kinda had to,” he reminded her, more amused than anything. 

“I’m glad I had you to call,” she added and another empty room where no one was supposed to be flickered into light.


	20. What Matters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day/Theme: 11) How to laugh forever

"You don’t care about anything do you?"

"Depends on what you mean by care." 

She sputtered, turning a little red under the makeup. 

"What do you think I mean? Care about! Feel something for!" 

He made a big show of scratching his head, dislodging some weevils and stirring up a cloud of dander and grave dust.

"Something that you will miss when it’s gone," she said through gritted teeth. He raised an eyebrow at her. He had really managed to push her buttons today. She was shaking, jaw locked and fists clenched. He couldn’t help but chuckle, which didn’t help.

“Nothing ends, princess,” he said, before she could burst into tears. “All these things you’re just sure will end the world as you know it? Not going to happen.“

“So,” she was trying, bless her little beating heart. “You don’t care because nothing matters.”

“You’re only half right,” he said, relenting a little. His sharp yellow eyes flicked over her and then focused on his disgusting fingernails. 

“Which half? You really do care or something actually matters?”

He giggled again and she grabbed his tie which wiggled and hissed in her hand like a live snake but didn’t bite her.

“Everything matters,” he said, locking fiery eyes with her furious ones. “Take it from somebody who lost everything and found it again. Dead or alive, times are good, if you let them. It’s hard to care when you’ve got no cares."


	21. Taking the Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day/Theme: 6. Stubbornly believing in a cursed crystal ball

She shouldn't trust him, but she did. The Maitlands, especially Barbara, despised him and assumed the worst at every turn. He obliged them by being despicable and taking even their low expectations to new depths. Her parents believed his presence was a fluke, that there was order in the universe and the afterlife and that he wasn't really allowed to manifest completely. They figured the worst he could do was be a minor nuisance. She hadn't told them that she could call him up or banish him at will, or that the one happened much more often than the other. Beetlejuice humored that too. 

It wasn't that she was stupid. She knew better than to trust him. She was wary. She kept her eye out for potential traps, but still managed to enjoy his company. So, he was just dirty enough for her to catch him, just raunchy enough to satisfy her paranoia. She wondered sometimes if he was just giving everyone what they expected, that he was only untrustworthy because no one trusted him. Deep down, she knew better.

He was dangerous and the moment she forgot that, he could strike. People kept poisonous snakes and predatory cats as pets for years before they were turned on. As long as she remembered that anything he told her could be a lie, anywhere he led could be a trap, and anything he offered her could come with a very steep price, she might be all right. She stayed just an inch out of reach. She didn't want to give him up, even if it was only a matter of time before she was hurt. 

But time was nothing to him, so maybe it would be a long time.


	22. Getting Over It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day/Theme: 4. This too shall pass.

“Is it as bad as all that?” 

The gruff voice made her look up into a gargoyle’s face of white and moldy green, contorted into a hideous imitation of her own suffering expression. Despite the grimace, the balefire eyes were gleaming with amusement, and that was just salt in the wound. Lydia rolled away to face the opposite direction, jerking a pillow to her chest and curling around it. 

“Go away. You can’t joke this better.” 

He cackled a bit and let his face contort back into his usual features. He floated over her head to peer at her upside down, grinning from ear to ear.

“Don’t need to, babes.” He said it mildly, but then ruined it with another cackle. “It’s enough of a joke by itself.”

“It is not!” she flared, anger finally lending some color to her face. Her lips pursed to spew his name and he pinned them flat with one finger. Even through her anger, she noticed a smell somewhere between tarter sauce and old cigar ashes and pulled her lips even tighter for fear of getting a taste.

“Don’t take it so seriously,” he purred. “These are the problems that happen to every breather about your age every single time. The joke is that you all suffer through it the same way without even considering that you aren’t the most misunderstood, miserable living soul, that you’ve lived so long and seen so much of the world, that surely no one could ever have suffered as much in less than 20 years as you have.”

“Easy for you to say.” His scorn stung worse than her original woe, so she pulled away again into more of a sulk than a rage. “You don’t have to live at all.”

“Easy for you,” he said, quietly enough that she looked up in alarm. “To disregard life when you don’t know what it’s like to lose it.”

"Why are you being so serious?" she asked after a moment.

"Why are you being so serious?"

"Because-" And then she had to stop because she had been well and truly distracted away from her gloom. She glared at him again. "You did that on purpose."

"Get over it, kid," he said, grinning. "You're wasting good time."


	23. Maybe More Brave Than Weird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day/Theme: 8. You know that ghost is me

Everyone knew the story. All the kids in school eventually heard that a girl had been killed in the school’s lower storage basement by the teacher she was sleeping with when he found out that she was pregnant. The job he did on her gave the janitor who found her a heart attack and that poor man had died on the stairs trying to flee the room. The teacher was found hanging in the same basement a year to the day later. 

But when the school had it’s annual lock-in, and the girls in their cute sleeping bags played Truth or Dare, it was Lydia (with a sleeping bag that looked like a plush tombstone with a zipper. It even had her own name on it) who chose to go into the basement to light a candle rather than tell who she had a crush on. 

The gaggle of classmates followed her to the top of the stairs, but no farther. One of them handed her a box of matches.

“There’s a cabinet just inside,” another girl whispered. “There’s some candles from the when they moved some of the drama clubs’ props down there. Light one and leave it on the table so we can see it through the little window.”

The other girls giggled nervously. They were wide-eyed and fidgeting, all eyes on the small rectangle of window in the door. Lydia smirked and took the matches and walked without hesitation down the stairs. The old door opened with a creak that made the girls gasp and jump. Lydia didn’t even look back as she walked inside, letting it close behind her. 

The little bit of light from the tiny window let her see her way to the cabinet and sure enough, there was a variety of carefully melted candles from the production of Beauty and the Beast a year before Lydia had moved there. She picked one and set it on a clear place on the table. She struck a match and found it reflected off two manic eyes. 

“Boo,” he said softly and blew out the match. There was a barely audible collection of gasps from up the stairs when the girls saw the brief flare of light go out. 

“Beetlejuice!” Lydia whispered, suppressing a gasp of her own. “Don’t tell me you’re the ghost haunting this place.”

“Seriously, babe,” he said, as she lit a second match. “That crap was made up by morbid teenagers. If some kid did get knocked up for a better algebra grade, she didn’t get mutilated down here.”

“What about the janitor?” Lydia asked, lighting the candle this time and smiling at the muffled sounds of dread and excitement up the stairs. 

“Monroe?” Beetlejuice jerked his thumb to point to the left. “Stroke took him out working late. They didn’t find him until morning, mop still in his hand.”

“Is he still here? Do you talk to him?”

“Pshhh. No. He had family on the other side. Some of his residual energy clung to his mop so that they always found it where they found his body, but after awhile of that, they burned it in the furnace.”

“Aw. I suppose no creepy teacher hung himself either.”

“Herself.”

“…What?” she asked, surprised. She had been kidding. 

“The old drama teacher three or four generations back,” he shrugged like it didn’t matter. “And it was an accident. Tripped and got her costume caught on a railing. She kicks back in the drama department. Likes to quote Hamlet. Kinda dull, to be honest.”

Lydia chuckled softly. She heard her name called, meekly and nervously from the stairs.

“I’d better go,” she said. “Put out the candle for me? I don’t want to burn the place down and start a new rash of stories.”

“Yeah, all right,” he sighed like it would be a lot of work, then grinned toothily. “I suppose you’ll put me out before I can scare that bunch of twits, won’t you?”

“I couldn’t do that if you went home to wait on me, could I?” she said with a grin of her own. Then she slipped back out the door. He heard the squeals and cheers from the other girls when they saw her. He considered having the candle burst into phantom flames to send the gaggle sprinting back. He considered having it go out when Lyds got to the middle of the stairs so she could see the looks of horror on all her little living chums’ faces. Then, he had a better idea.

The giggles and squeals made their way back to the room the girls were sleeping in. They were congratulating Lydia and asking what it was like in the basement when the first girl through the door stopped with a gasp. They all went quiet to see what she was looking at and there, in the center of the circle of sleeping bags, was the candle. On the chalkboard behind it, someone had written ‘Who DO you have a crush on?’ 

In front of their eyes, the candle blew out.


	24. Good Influence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day/Theme: 2) make him tame so he can live in peace with the world

Everyone on the Other Side knew he wanted out. They didn’t know why. They didn’t care why. Juno knew him better than anyone dead and she was worried about what he was capable of if he ever was completely unleashed on the world of the living. She had spent centuries making sure that all his loopholes were stitched closed and all creative interpretations of the laws crushed flat. 

So, it came as a surprise to many of her staff when she called off the majority of his surveillance. It didn’t make any sense. His forays into the living world set off red lights all through the veil. It got a little easier for him to slip through every time. Another generation or so, and he might not even need the child to call him through. If anything, Juno should be tightening the reins, they argued, not loosening them.

Tight reins had never stopped Beetlejuice though, and Juno knew it. It was like trying to catch a striped eel with your hands; the tighter you squeezed, the easier he slipped out of your grip, leaving a coating of something slimy. The child could handle him though. Without even trying, the girl talked him down and brought him to heel and had him behaving. Behaving badly, Juno had to admit, but doing little real harm. 

Every now and then, she’d see the gleam of mad power in his eyes or his grin and wonder if she had been wrong, but then the girl would whine or better yet, laugh, and he would rock back on his heels, even in midair, and change his tune to please her. Whatever leash the mortal child had him on, she didn’t yank it, but he was careful to stay close anyway. 

The girl wouldn’t be a girl for much longer, Juno knew. Being mortal meant that sooner or later, Beetlejuice wouldn’t have to leave the Other Side to visit her. Hopefully, by then, she would’ve been a good enough influence that it wouldn’t matter. Hopefully, by then, he would be a good influence on her in the afterlife. 

Because the last thing I need is two of them, Juno thought, rolling her eyes, and then she was gone, leaving only the faint scent of cigarette smoke.


	25. What He Sees in Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day/Theme: 14. the girl in question

She was pretty enough, in her own morbid way. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark clothes. A little out of place in the small, rural town, but nothing that remarkable. She was polite and good-natured enough for most of the local yokels to overlook a weird fashion sense. She was from the distant big city anyway. No telling what passed for normal there. Poor girl couldn’t help being a little strange, growing up in that place.

So what was it about her that kept the most powerful poltergeist known to the Neitherworld in a steady orbit? She wasn’t beautiful or desirable enough to have it just be his baser instincts, not when there were ghouls and succubi a-plenty who wouldn’t say no. 

She wasn’t powerful enough to have appealed to his ambition. She had the Sight, sure, but that by itself wasn’t enough to draw him. Whatever fire burned within her, it drew him like a giant, black and white moth. 

Maybe he was flattered by her admittedly unhealthy interest in him. Maybe there was an angle he had noticed that pretending to befriend the little breather would be to his advantage. Maybe it just fun to string her along. Whatever it was, it distracted him from a centuries long goal to be free of the Neitherworld. Technically, he was out. He was loose. What he wasn’t, was taking advantage of that. 

It had his parole/probation/exorcism team scrambling to figure it out. They were trying to anticipate his next move, and he just wasn’t making any. He came when summoned, was banished with only good-natured complaining when he wore out his welcome, and well, just haunted the girl. It was out of character, and to those who had spent most of their afterlives trying to contain him, a little spooky.


	26. Reasons of His Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day/Theme: 13. fool for love

Why did he do this? He was one of the most powerful beings on the Other Side. He could alter reality. He could turn either world on its head. He could tear through the barrier of the living and the dead, unleashing departed souls back into the physical realm, and the living into the neither realms. Why did he lower himself to stupid puns and dirty jokes and filthy fingernails?

He could take any shape. He could be your worst fear, or the next to the worst one, to build the suspense. He could abandon his physical self entirely and release the power pinned away in his shabby form. He could become a true entity of energy and chaos. That’s what they were afraid of. That’s why they had bound him in chains of his own name, mired him down with rules, to keep him too hindered to be the threat they all knew he could be. 

He hadn’t made any effort to cast off his tangible form though, no attempt to become all powerful. He stayed as he was, a little too old, and far too unwashed, paunchy, unkempt and ridiculous. Was it possible, as powerful as he already was, that he didn’t really want to destroy the worlds? Why, since he was that powerful, did he limit his goals to just tearing around the living world, playing juvenile pranks and feeding on individual fears? 

He could have anything! Be anything! And instead, he haunted a remodeled farmhouse and the dark-eyed, dark-souled girl inside. He teased and lightly tormented her, when he could’ve broken her utterly, left her mad or dead or worse. He tolerated her returning that teasing torment, when he could’ve answered it with violence and bedlam. 

If he had really unleashed, he could’ve crushed and ruled the living world. Instead, he played the jester, and the only explanation for it seemed to be the girl.


	27. A Bad Way to Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day/Theme: 24: Death by embarrassment

“Does it hurt to die?” Lydia asked before she even set her book bag down. She looked harried and miserable. The ghost blinked at her. 

“Depends on the method,” he growled. “Freezing isn’t too bad. Burning is bearable if the smoke gets you first. Stoning sucks. Crucifixion is worse. Disease is almost always nasty. Drowning varies by situation. So does poison. Hanging -”

“How about total humiliation?” Lydia interrupted. He arched an eyebrow and she covered her face with her hands. “My mother agreed to give the Sex Ed talk at school.”

The poltergeist’s face didn’t move for a whole second before it split into laughter. He howled, kicking his pointed boots in the air. Lydia waited for him to recover long enough to look at her again before pulling a leotard out of her bag. Delia had ’decorated’ it to be an anatomically correct diagram of the female reproductive system. 

“She wants me to wear this,” she said as he went bug-eyed. His lips pursed in horror and then sputtered into more laughter.

“You got me!” he screeched. “You win! That’s the most painful thing I can imagine!” He guffawed and chortled until a reluctant smile wormed its way over Lydia’s agonized expression. 

“But you know,” he said, getting hold of himself. “There might be a few things about this particular subject I can teach you.”

“Forget it,” she held up her hands in the universal ’stop’ gesture. 

“It’s been awhile,” he went on as if he hadn’t heard. “But I can promise I won’t need the diagram.”

“Oh yeah?” she set her hands on her hips. He had expected disgust and outrage, but instead got a mocking look that surprised him. “There’s a leotard with boy parts on it, too. Care to try it on?”

“Um, no.” His bluff called a little too quickly, he adopted a lofty pose and a haughty accent. “I think that I shall be coming down with a plague that day.” He fell back to his usual gruff drawl. “And if you’re smart, you will too.”

“Got any that you recommend?” she sighed, looking back at the leotard.


	28. First Anniversary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day/Theme: 3. he was on the mend, more broken than I'd ever been

It was a year to the day, to the hour really. Her 'wedding' anniversary. She had mulled it over since that day and as glad as she had been to be saved and safe from him, she knew she had cheated. So had he, of course, several times. She didn't owe him anything. She had agreed to marry him, and even if she had balked at the alter, she had had that right. Right? 

She had kept the ring. 

As soon as the thought of it crossed her mind, her mirror cracked. It startled her up off her bed and she ventured close enough to see what might have broken it. Her reflection was distorted for a moment, but then its head jerked up and the eyes were not hers. She stumbled back and it leered at her, teeth like Stonehenge grinding into a feral grimace as the rest of him bled into her reflection. 

She squeaked his name before she could stop herself.

"Say it," he hissed and it fell off her tongue again. He slammed his palm against his side of the mirror and his whole being writhed with what looked like pain. Her hand raised up too, maybe in imitation of his movement since he was using her reflection. He was contorting, like he was fighting a heavy current to cling to the glass. 

She felt trapped in a bubble of stillness. 

If he could break through the glass, he could break through the bubble, but not unless she said anything. He looked like he had been torn apart and had pulled himself back together piece by piece, holding together with spit and spiderwebs. He couldn't get out unless she said his name again. She didn't have to. She watched him struggle, feeling nothing. She didn't have to feel anything. He looked frantic and desperate enough for both of them. 

She said his name the third time without being asked.

He fell through to land on the floor at her feet. He lay there for a moment and then struggled to get up. Nothing seemed to work. His swagger and bravado were gone. He grunted and hissed and clawed up the side of her dresser until he was upright and then leaned back against it. 

She just watched him. 

He had always looked like death. Now he looked like something worse. He was still fishbelly pale, but the old greenish crud was charred and blackened. His eyes were still toxic yellow, but the malice in them had paled into trauma. He glared at her with them anyway. He didn't need to breathe, but he was sucking in deep breaths. It seemed to do him good, settled him down and let him get a better grip on all his pieces. 

She sat down on her bed again and waited. 

He grimaced again, maybe giving up on her being the one to break the silence and went rummaging in his pockets. While she watched, he rolled two cigarettes and stuck one in his mouth. He lit it with a spark from his fingertip and then used it to light the second one. He held that one out to her. 

She took it, but didn't bring it anywhere near her mouth. 

"First anniversary is paper, right?" he said, all grit and rock salt. Acceptance must've been enough, because he relaxed back against her dresser and took a long drag. He was still watching her for any reaction, but she didn't give him any. 

"Honey," he said after a long moment. "I'm home.


End file.
